Diary of a Social Networker?
August 24, 2007 | Media Trends
My foray into social networking started in spring 2003 when I somewhat reluctantly joined the Friendster frenzy to snoop on my friends’ friends for date material and have my friends hype how cool I was (LOL).
Next I joined LinkedIn to beef up my professional network and start collecting an electronic paper trail of all the interesting people I’ve met along the way. You never know who so-and-so knows, right? Agreed, it’s opportunistic, but it’s honest and straightforward, and I never have to claim we’re “friends”.
Years later, I joined MySpace (very reluctantly) to support the CD release my musician husband. The experience of logging into and using MySpace was altogether irritating. So many people, so many dreams, and so little “genuine” community, despite the fact you have 2 million friends. Check out this funny clip on the topic. I’ve even spent considerable hours on Last.fm, a social music discovery site to find new music.
One thing I can say for all the sites: the time you put into (and that can be a lot) is only as valuable as what you want out of it. Each network has their own particular utility — whether it’s dating, professional networking, supporting or finding a musician. There’s no doubt, social networks are useful. Some more than others.
Most recently I joined Facebook to see what the fuss was all about. So far, it seems like a great way to keep a pulse on all the cool technology my “friends” are into. I’m even helping to contribute to the fray. Today, I added my client Jaman’s new Facebook application called Jamanation to my profile. Effectively, I told everyone in my network that Jaman is a place to find and download great global, independent titles in high definition. How convenient and cool.
“Social networks are a sad excuse for self validation,” says my husband who is certain social networks are just a fad. I don’t agree, but one thing that is true for this social networker — after going on a few dates with people I met on Friendster years ago, I ended up hanging up my Friendster shoes when I met my husband, who I did not meet online.
However, that said, he was just one degree of separation away — the friend of a friend. Long live social networks!
- June
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.sparkpr.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/25
